I spent the summer of 2010 studying in Venice, Italy, and was captivated by the way catholicism has visually influenced the city. I began to read about the lives of female catholic saints. This led me to this passage from Jacques de Vitry’s Life of Marie d'Oignies, which describes a Beguine community in 13th century Europe:
You saw other women wasting away with such an intimate and wondrous state of love in God that they were faint with desire and who for many years could only rarely rise from their beds. There was no other cause for their sickness except Him, since their souls had melted with desire for Him.
I was really taken with the image of a town full of women wasting away in bed, love-sick. These drawings of sick girls followed.